IF YOU believe the hype, Melbourne is full of "hidden treasures"
and "best-kept secrets", despite the fact that most of said secrets
and treasures are usually full of wankers by 9.30pm and "hidden"
means approximately two seconds from a CBD main drag.

It is time, therefore, for the more intrepid bar-hopper to look
beyond the usual suspects and travel further from the city when
treasure-hunting - and thankfully a No.86 tram will drop you right
across the road from Open Studio, Northcote's most entertainingly
esoteric watering hole.

Housed in a sometime art studio-cum-living room and on a strip
dotted with beauty therapists, junk shops and, er, Christian
Science reading rooms, Open Studio is hardly in the middle of party
central, and is all the more enjoyable for it.

Entering the venue is a little like walking into an arty
Northcote version of Star Wars' space cantina; I
half-expected a rotund painterly type to grab my shoulder, point to
his diminutive, fur-coated partner in crime and say, "He doesn't
like you. I don't like you, either," before trying to shoot me with
a laser gun. And there was a fur-coated partner in crime or two
doing the rounds.

Fortunately, there were no such scuffles when our party attended
on a Saturday night, though the nature of the place - the bar is at
the back of the room, where people congregate away from the breezy
front door - can make walking in a little daunting. Particularly if
you don't fit right in with the gaggle of central casting artists,
poets, raggedy children and female flautists in Barbarella
outfits.

The room is overflowing with the kind of "vibe" that so many
other bars are so desperate to harness: little wooden card tables
and junkyard chairs dot the front of the Studio (where there is
usually a musical act of some description; gypsy party band one
minute, two-piece free-jazz ensemble the next), while the bar (next
to the back door) is a charmingly ramshackle affair serving beer,
wine, a few spirits and even herbal tea. After a member of our
party ordered a vodka and Coke, the bar staff hollered, "There's no
Coke!", but it was just as likely an observation of their modest
fridge's contents as a bolshy political statement. We settled for
health-giving cranberry and vodkas instead.

Most magical of all is the low-lit (like, seriously, some
strings of twinkling fairy lights and a few Tiki-by-way-of-Bunnings
torches) backyard. Standing on a pea-straw carpet next to herb
gardens under the night sky beats the hell out of scrambling for
service at a packed inner-city meat market. Give me the mock-meat
market any day.